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GAO-24-106986 1 (2023-11-16)

handle is hein.gao/gaopkp0001 and id is 1 raw text is: U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 441 G St. N.W. Washington, DC 20548 November 16, 2023 Inspectors General Financial Audit Guidance: FY 2024 and FY 2025 Audit Procedures for Government Land In July 2021, the Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board issued Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards (SFFAS) 59, Accounting and Reporting of Government Land. SFFAS 59 addresses the accounting and reporting of (1) general property, plant, and equipment land and permanent land rights (referred to as G-PP&E land) and (2) stewardship land and land rights (referred to as stewardship land).' Generally, G-PP&E land has been required to be reported on the balance sheet at historical cost and stewardship land has been required to be disclosed in the notes to the financial statements, based on the number of physical units with no related cost information. In SFFAS 59, the Board determined that reporting estimated acres of both G-PP&E land and stewardship land in the notes to the financial statements would increase transparency, comparability, consistency, and reliability of land information while minimizing burden and costs. As this was a significant change in the accounting and reporting of government land, the Board established an implementation period in which the new requirements would first be reported as unaudited required supplementary information (RSI) for fiscal years 2022 through 2025. This time would allow preparers and auditors to identify implementation challenges and allow agencies to prepare for the transition of land information from RSI to note disclosures in fiscal year 2026. To further these efforts, we developed this audit guidance, in cooperation with the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE). The procedures in the enclosed guidance are designed to obtain information for fiscal years 2024 and 2025 to (1) better understand the extent to which measurement and presentation of land information is consistent with SFFAS 59 and (2) identify any preparation and audit challenges related to reporting government land. The Board plans to consider preparation and audit challenges that preparers and auditors have identified during the transition, and, as appropriate, take actions to address them before the information transitions to the note disclosures. We prepared this guidance under the authority of the Comptroller General to conduct work in this area. The objective of this work is to provide audit guidance on procedures to be applied to RSI reporting of government land by auditors performing audits of federal entities' financial statements for fiscal years 2024 and 2025. To prepare the guidance, we met with officials from the major land holding agencies and their auditors, reviewed agency documentation relating to 1G-PP&E is property, plant, and equipment (PP&E) used to provide government services or goods. PP&E consists of tangible assets, including land, that have estimated useful lives of 2 years or more; are not intended for sale in the ordinary course of operations; and have been acquired or constructed with the intention of being used, or being available for use, by the entity. PP&E also includes assets acquired through capital leases, including leasehold improvements, property owned by the reporting entity in the hands of others, and land rights. Land rights are interests and privileges held by the entity in land owned by others. Stewardship land is land and land rights other than that included in G-PP&E and is intended to be held indefinitely. GAO-24-106986 Land Audit Guidance Page 1

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